Has the Dub or original made you hate a character?

[desirecampbell]

See, now you're just floundering to look innocent. It's just sad, really. Everyone can see what you've posted, and what I've posted.

*shakes head sadly, and with pity, at Ultimate DBZ*

[Vekurotto]

I really hated Bulma and most of the women as well in the dub. They way they showed Bulma seem like she's either a bitch, or that she's got no class or intelligence to her whatsoever. Now she can be pretty mean in the sub but I saw more to that. Sometimes she was mean mostly because she didn't know what she was getting into or didn't know what to do in a heated situation, it pretty much had a reason to it. And they always took out how Bulma always, always, always, believed in Goku. She even wished she would've dated him instead Yamucha after he married Chi-Chi .

And then there's Gohan which, this is more of a character flaw than anything, But I just hate how he's just wasted potential. He's been the strongest character 3-4 times in the series and yet he feels he doesn't have to fight or he got shafted in someway. He's just more frustrating than anything.

EDIT: Oh yeah I forgot some things.

Vegeta and Piccolo in Funi's dub. :sigh: I really hate how Sabat makes them both sound like pissed off, whiny idiots in comparison to how they sound in the original. I actually much prefer McNeil's Piccolo and Drummond Vegeta. I just wish Drummond would've tapped into more of his Zech Marquise voice, then that would be the most awesome Vegeta next to Horikawa. MeNeil was amazing. I have no complaints about him.

Goku in the dub. I really have a hard time with Goku's portrayal in any dub to be honest. Schemmel sometimes makes me cringe when he voices Goku. The thing is he just sounds too heroic in his line delivery and then when he tries to be "childlike" it comes off sounding like a cheap attempt IMO. Not to mention he thinks/thought that Goku was bi-polar because he was nice one second and mean the next. Overall I think he did a decent job but it lacks in many areas and some areas are barely etched upon. It's like there was a good amount of potential was there with his voice but a good amount of it went to waste.

And then there's Stephanie Nadolny who I think, portrayed chibi-Goku in all of the wrong ways like, Making him "cool" instead of "ignorant" and not making him as cute either. There are many times that I can think of in the sub where they say that Goku's "vulgar", like when (according to the subs) He said things to high officials like,

"I gotta take a leak and a dump"

where the dub would have

"Oh I've gotta go to the bathroom."/"My stomach hurts!".

It's subtle but it's pretty much oversimplifying Goku's naive and innocent personality a bit.

The bottom line on Goku is that from what I got in the sub, Goku's supposed to be a ignorant, uninformed, uncivilized hick when he's younger and grows into a less ignorant, slightly less uninformed, slightly civilized hick and neither Nadolny, Schemmel, (or the writers at Funi) didn't like that. And I get pissed at that because that's a huge part of his character. It's one of those things that I scream don't fucking change that part every time I saw parts of the dub.

[Kaboom]

She even wished she would've dated him instead Yamucha after he married Chi-Chi

Dub Bulma did call Goku a hunk once during the Trunks saga.

[Jerseymilk]

I never said I didn't like him. I just said i prefer Sean Schemeal. You just love to complain a lot in that big dark basement of oyurs while youron the computer for 7 hours a day. GET A LIFE.

Really now?

Goku. Sean Schemeal is so much better to Goku, as the Japanese is just terribble [sic]. Its clearly a girl, and the voice is so much worse.

Uh huh. Right.

And lashing out with insults about being in a basement, getting a life? Digging your hole deeper, friend.

See what I mean! You should get baned. Its called an oppinion. Do you know that means.

Since when is a flame response by someone on a forum considered an innocent opinion?

[Vekurotto]

She even wished she would've dated him instead Yamucha after he married Chi-Chi

Dub Bulma did call Goku a hunk once during the Trunks saga.

Yeah but that seemed pretty innocent to me. It was like one of those things girls do when they're pissed at their boyfriends (*cough* Yamucha*). It just didn't seem like in the dub that she was considering him as a boyfriend/husband like the times in the sub. Granted the sub version makes her not have feelings for Goku after Freeza but still, it's like they missed that entirely or they just don't like implied feelings of attraction in the dub

[bkev]

Ey, bottom line: you're both being pricks.
Now watch as I get banned and you two continue to flame the forum away
Edited to seem less rude, I think I went too far.

[desirecampbell]

Ey, bottom line: you're both pricks.
Now watch as I get banned and you two continue to flame the forum away

Pfft. I'm done with him.

Anyway, back on topic - as other have said, many of the female characters, especially Bulma, are just impossible to watch. And obviously Freeza was a bad voice choice. But other than that, I don't think there's any dub voice I hated that much. McNiel's Piccolo was okay, Drummond's Vegeta was an interesting change, and the Gokus weren't terrible (except the Big Green dub, and the Malaysian dub).

[Li'l Lemmy]

Eh. I think the problem with a lot of the female characters isn't so much the fault of the VA's as it's probably the script.

ChiChi, for example. I don't mind Cranz's voice at all; it could BE a good ChiChi, if worked properly. But it's demonstrated too far over the top in most cases to be taken as anything but bitchy to the fourth power. And while we could say it's the voice change and the fault of the VA, I'm willing to hypothesize that an overly simplified script cue that reads something to the effect of "ChiChi is angry" rather than "ChiChi is frustrated and worried over Gohan's safety" is at least partly responsible for making a lot of that happen-- the VA's are empty vessels, see, and they're as much at the mercy of the director's interpretation of characters and events as any other aspect of the dub. (Well . . . unless your Christopher Sabat, a'course. Then you can get away with pretty much anything.)

I say this because, while the right and proper voice is important with respect to the character and how he/she was voiced originally, there are still moments that the dub does get right no matter what the voice sounds like-- proof that voices don't have to be an exact match to the originals at all times for all characters. The dub Boo saga, for example, has its notable flaws, but it also started to find the character's emotional cores to some degree after a LOT of floundering (which was likely the effect of the VA's having matured into them by that point), and it thus came off as a mostly convincing exercise. The actual dialogue was hardly perfect but not particularly unreasonable, the voicework was consistent and there were even moments that shined. If the rest of FUNimation's DragonBall Z had been dubbed in this manner it would have sufficed, at least for me.

I think Kaboom mentioned Babidi a few posts back. His is a good example of a voice that doesn't much sync with the original but works well nonetheless, because the character's core is marvelously maintained in the translation; I can't think of anything that they did terribly wrong with him, dialogue or otherwise, and the performance is quite good. (Duncan Brannan seemed to have fun with it.) Chuck Huber as Garlic Jr. is a less relevant example, but also works on the days when stupid dialogue (like in the actual saga, unfortunately) isn't running rampant-- he did strong work in the reissue of the Dead Zone movie, and outside of that turned out a good choice for Artificial Human 17. Mike McFarland's Yajirobe, while absolutely nothing like Tanaka Mayumi's, I like (particularly in the redub), and Kyle Hebert's Paikuhan is also quite reasonable. And whomever voiced for Dabura is just fantastic, for some reason-- a very proper vocal choice and excellent "demonic" delivery; he's probably the best of the set on the dub side. All of these VA/character combinations (and some others), in most instances, do well with respect to the original DragonBall Z.

For the subject at hand, which I've done a wonderful job of ignoring, I can't say that I'm able to think of any voices I particularly dislike. Vollmer's interpretation of Bulma probably comes the closest due to the extreme exaggeration of the character's subtle flaws (not to mention fairly stupid dialogue in the initial seasons), and I've never been a particularly big fan of side characters who end up with a Southern drawl in the dub (which is no offense to those particular characters, or to Southeners ); they just never seem to end up well-performed, not to mention that they end up with a lot of "appropriate" dialogue to go along with the accent. Vinegar was one, 2nd-Form Cell was another, though somewhat less obvious.

Meanwhile, I did like Sauza's French-ish accent by comparison. Huh.


~Da Lemmy

[Sun_Wukong]

I hated how dub King Cold's voice was much better suited for Freeza.

If Freeza had that dub voice there would be far less complaints about it. Afterall, it's the voice of a slightly effeminate man, not a scratchy sounding old woman.

Really? you'ed rather have Freeza sound like a 50 year old drag queen than a woman who smoked too much?

King Cold was one of the absolute worst Dub voices in it's history

[Alice]

Well, aside from the Bulma thing, I think Goku is made into a much more boring character in the dub. Originally, while he was a very good character with a lot of purity he also had some darker, more selfish points to him that made him interesting and contrasted well with the rest of his character. But in the dub, he's just so all around perfect and selfless that there's not much reason to pay attention to him. He's a saint. He's way too predictable, he's just The Good Guy.

I think that's part of the reason why his character has nowhere near the level of popularity among North American fans that he had with the Japanese fans, he hardly ever even gets mentioned and he's supposed to be the main character. There may be cultural differences that contribute to that too, but I think that's the main reason.

[omegacwa]

Anyone who thinks Goku's voice sounds girly need simply to watch a clip of Ms Nozawa herself performing the voice, because when you see that your opinion will change as it looks totally awkward and weird coming out of a women.

As for me, I only felt it sounded girly when I first heard it, but not really again.

I think Dub Freeza is the only voice I really didn't like. And I wasn't too fond of Sabat's early work, but Sabat now is totally different and 100% better than he was then, and I really enjoy his stuff now.

[Vekurotto]

I think Goku is made into a much more boring character in the dub. Originally, while he was a very good character with a lot of purity he also had some darker, more selfish points to him that made him interesting and contrasted well with the rest of his character. But in the dub, he's just so all around perfect and selfless that there's not much reason to pay attention to him. He's a saint. He's way too predictable, he's just The Good Guy.

You know that's a good point. In the dub I always saw Goku as Superman from the late 1930's. While he wasn't "perfect", like 30's Superman, in the dub he was damned near it. We get uber-heroic speeches like "ALLY TO GOOD NIGHTMARE TO YOU!!!!!!!!" and "Spare Vegeta because he'll be a good guy later in the series." Contrasted to "I AM SUPER SAIYAJIN, SON GOKU!!!!!" and "Spare Vegeta because I want to fight him again even though he killed all of our friends."

Some of Goku's selfish qualities come out in the dub, you can tell they're there when it's painfully obvious, but I feel they're toned down some.

[B-kun]

"Spare Vegeta because I want to fight him again even though he killed all of our friends.".

To be fair, Vegeta wasn't actually directly responsible for any hero deaths, just that one Saibaman and Nappa. All the Z-Senshi were either killed by Saibamen or Nappa. Or suicide in the cases of Tenshinhan and Chaozu.

[Sun_Wukong]

Well, aside from the Bulma thing, I think Goku is made into a much more boring character in the dub. Originally, while he was a very good character with a lot of purity he also had some darker, more selfish points to him that made him interesting and contrasted well with the rest of his character. But in the dub, he's just so all around perfect and selfless that there's not much reason to pay attention to him. He's a saint. He's way too predictable, he's just The Good Guy.

Goku's innocent side is something an adult male just cant pull off. Schemmel did the best out of the multitude of American actors but still didnt nail it.

You know that's a good point. In the dub I always saw Goku as Superman from the late 1930's. While he wasn't "perfect", like 30's Superman, in the dub he was damned near it.

So you're comparing Sean Schemmel to George Reeves?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HJCrUDbigw

Because I really really dont see it..

[Vekurotto]

"Spare Vegeta because I want to fight him again even though he killed all of our friends.".

To be fair, Vegeta wasn't actually directly responsible for any deaths, just that one Saibaman. All the Z-Senshi were either killed by Saibamen or Nappa. Or suicide in the cases of Tenshinhan and Chaozu.

True dat. That's what the dialogue says though

You know that's a good point. In the dub I always saw Goku as Superman from the late 1930's. While he wasn't "perfect", like 30's Superman, in the dub he was damned near it.

So you're comparing Sean Schemmel to George Reeves?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HJCrUDbigw

Because I really really dont see it..

Eh no. I'm saying, there were multiple ways to make it seem like Goku was God in the dub even more than Toei Animation pulled with Movie 13's title. "If Goku Can't Do It No One Can!!".

We've got the Boo saga dub saying that he's strong enough to fight Super Boo after Boo's Gotenks fusion wears off, when in the sub he said Gohan should be able to beat Boo now. Then, "ALLY TO GOOD NIGHTMARE TO YOU". 'Insult' is too good of a word for that speech, and we have these times when Goku's always morally right like all of those times here and there when he's talking about how bad guys hurt the "innocent" when the sub version has nothing like that at all. There's more to Funi's Goku but it's just that time and time again Funi always gave off this impression that Goku was a slightly less good Superman, but still wanted to always be morally right rather than when sub Goku seemed like a regular guy that didn't care as much about anybody other than himself with superhuman powers.

[Super Sonic]

I hated how dub King Cold's voice was much better suited for Freeza.

If Freeza had that dub voice there would be far less complaints about it. Afterall, it's the voice of a slightly effeminate man, not a scratchy sounding old woman.

Really? you'ed rather have Freeza sound like a 50 year old drag queen than a woman who smoked too much?

King Cold was one of the absolute worst Dub voices in it's history

Most people I know thought Frieza should've been done by King Cold's VA. Might be the evil British accent, as Frieza would rock with one. Then again, evil British accents sound great all the time.

[Jerseymilk]

I'm sorry to those that love it, but I think that the whole "ALLY TO GOOD, NIGHTMARE TO YOU!" speech is the most ridiculous, unbelievable and poorly thought up ones in the entire dub. It's so out of touch with Goku's true character from his current emotions(thanks to his new transformation) to the wording that it plain irks me. Not to mention it's downright lame and cheesy to me. >>

[Vekurotto]

I hated how dub King Cold's voice was much better suited for Freeza.

If Freeza had that dub voice there would be far less complaints about it. Afterall, it's the voice of a slightly effeminate man, not a scratchy sounding old woman.

Really? you'ed rather have Freeza sound like a 50 year old drag queen than a woman who smoked too much?

King Cold was one of the absolute worst Dub voices in it's history

Most people I know thought Freeza should've been done by King Cold's VA. Might be the evil British accent, as Freeza would rock with one. Then again, evil British accents sound great all the time.

Ya know, at least he wouldn't have sounded like a pissed off old lady if he had Cold's dub voice Either way though I heard Funi did a more suiting gruff voice for Cold in the BT3 dub, whatever happened to him?

[SatoSky]

Voices I hated from the English dub:

Kaio-sama (King Kai) - Damn he is so fucking annoying it makes me want to kill his VA with a spork.
Bulma & Chichi- For the same reasons that others have stated before me.
Vegeta - Sounds constipated most of the time.
Goku - Schemmel just makes him sound like a complete retard sometimes. He does have his moments, though. (SSJ3 transformation scream anyone.)

That's all I can think of right now, though I'm sure there's more. Both Freeza and King Cold's dub voices sucked, by the way.

[TheGreatness25]

Hm. A lot has to do with the fact that the voices don't sound natural... I'm thinking Piccolo. But then again, lets take them out of that environment for a second. In Shin-Chan for instance, Cynthia Cranz and Chuck Huber (I believe is his name, Android 17/Garlic Jr./Pilaf) sound pretty good. They sound natural really. But they use the same voices as they do in DBZ. And in Budokai 1 especially, the voices were pretty stellar and sounded a lot more natural. In fact, it was Budokai 1 that warmed me up to the dub voices, I used to hate them with a passion before that. I just think it was the voices done with the music, and that combination just made it sound weird.